Cape school districts optimistic on start dates

Without a crystal ball to foresee snowstorms and flu epidemics, most Cape school districts are taking a gamble by waiting until after Labor Day to open for students.

SUSAN MILTON

Without a crystal ball to foresee snowstorms and flu epidemics, most Cape school districts are taking a gamble by waiting until after Labor Day to open for students.

Schools in Bourne, Falmouth and Chatham, and Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School in Bourne start this week, along with Sturgis Charter Public School in Hyannis.

But other districts are waiting until after the three-day holiday to start classes. In doing so, most Cape schools again are gambling they can squeeze in their required 180 days of school before June 30.

Their ace in the hole is the five "snow days" that all schools must schedule under state rules for closing school during storms, flu epidemics and other emergencies. If Cape schools need all five days, as most did in 2005, students could be in school until the last three days in June, Cape school calendars show.

Several off-Cape school districts gambled and lost last year after a December ice storm forced schools to close for seven to 10 days.

"Fitchburg and Gardner had to cancel February vacations. Other districts had to cancel April vacations," said Thomas Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents.

The impact rippled through the lives of students, teachers and their families who had airline tickets, family reunions, ski trips and other vacation plans.

As a result of such disruptive changes, state education officials are prodding school committees, which set the calendars each spring, to build more flexibility into their calendars.

Towns can start school before Labor Day, schedule more than the recommended 185 days, hold a one-week vacation in March instead of February and April vacations and notify parents and teachers that the winter and/or spring vacations may be canceled if multiple school days need to be made up, suggested Mitchell Chester, Massachusetts commissioner of elementary and secondary education, this summer.

He can issue waivers from the 180-day requirement but, under a new policy, "waivers will be rare," department spokesman J.C. Considine said last week.

The policy requires that all days lost between the first day of school and March 31 be made up. All days lost between April 1 and June 1 must be made up until the district has held school for all 185 days in its calendar. All days lost after June 1 will be waived.

Along those lines, Chester denied waivers for last December's ice storm because districts still had several months to make up the lost days. He granted waivers for schools that closed for H1N1 outbreaks in May because they were completely unforeseen, hit so late in the year and affected individual schools and not entire districts, Considine said.

"These kinds of unexpected events can happen. If you are already scheduling your last day of school late in June, it doesn't leave much time," he said.

The 180-day requirement is pretty standard around the country, Scott said. But calendars vary from district to district.

The Cape's seasonal economy, educational philosophies, union contracts and practical issues influence the calendar, school superintendents said last week. Barnstable schools usually start early but are taking advantage of the late Labor Day to complete a massive reorganization by closing three schools and moving 250 classrooms, Supt. Patricia Grenier said.

"Because Labor Day was late this year, it gave us an extra week for packing and unpacking," she said.

Students are ready to come back to school and start learning during the last week in August and long to start their summer in June, Bourne Supt. Edmond LaFleur said.

"We get more out of students when we start early," he said. "For us, this is actually late this year because Labor Day is late. Last year the first day for students was August 26."

Falmouth is starting school Wednesday because Labor Day is so late this year, according to Ernest Holcomb, president of the Falmouth Education Association.

"There was the potential, with snow days, to get out the last day in June," he said. "Now we get out June 28."

Employers in Dennis and Yarmouth have asked schools there to start after Labor Day because they need the labor force, Dennis-Yarmouth Regional School Supt. Carol Woodbury was told when she started work there.

"When college students go back to school in August, a lot of the employers here depend on high school students through Labor Day," she said.

The starting date of school is just one factor that sets the last day of school, according to a look at the calendars of the Cape's school districts. Truro, for example, is in session for 182 days. Mashpee appears to have just four snow days scheduled.

Bourne, starting Sept. 1, and Barnstable, starting Sept. 8, both hope their last day of school is June 21, assuming no snow days. The difference is in the number of school holidays and professional or in-service days for teachers.

Bourne is closed Friday, making a long weekend for Labor Day, as well as Dec. 23. Unlike Barnstable, Bourne does not close school April 2, the Christian holiday of Good Friday. Neither do Chatham and Nauset school districts. Bourne also closes for three in-service days.

Most Cape districts this year will close the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Two districts, Sandwich and Harwich, are open for school but for just half a day. Upper Cape Tech is closed Tuesday as well. In the Nauset schools, students have the whole week off. Teachers have professional days for Monday and Tuesday.

Barnstable did the same last year "because we have such a high absenteeism rate usually," Grenier said. "We didn't do it this year because we wanted to capture those days due to our late start. Every year is different."

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